A/N: I know this place is mostly dead, but I rewrote and finished this one, so why not post it.
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prologue
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Deacon Claybourne is a patient man, but this is ridiculous. They've been sitting here for an hour. An hour of Rayna and Juliette sniping at each other instead of working together to find a song. Even Liam looks like he's getting tired of the show at this point.
"It's one song, alright?" Deacon bursts out. "Surely to God, the two of you can come together on one song!"
Rayna and Juliette look at him and then at each other, and for a brief instant, Deacon believes his words may have gotten through to them. That is until Juliette speaks again.
"I could have written three songs in the time we've been sitting here listening to you reminisce about your glory days, the days where you didn't need me to help you fill seats."
Deacon's head drops, and he buries his face in his hands. Why did he even bother.
"Let's be clear about something right now," Rayna says. "You are gonna be on that stage because of me. Alright? I am doing this as a favor for the label that I helped create. You have not earned that place at all, and everybody here knows it."
A stunned silence falls over the room. Without a word, Juliette gets up, grabs her purse and walks away. Deacon glares at Rayna who at least has the decency to admit that it was bad.
—
Juliette storms into her house, slamming the door shut behind her. She hasn't cooled off a bit since she left Soundcheck.
She is the one who's gone multiplatinum twice in the past three years. She is the one who's selling out arenas. And that... woman has the guts to claim she doesn't deserve to stand on the Ryman stage?
It hurts.
It hurts to admit she has let Rayna's words get to her. It hurts even more to admit she genuinely cares about Rayna's opinion.
She paces through her living room, mumbling to herself, but it does nothing to calm her down. She needs to unwind. She grabs her purse from where she'd thrown it on the kitchen counter. She fishes for her phone, and she calls Sean.
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Rayna is halfway home when she caves.
She pulls over to the side of the road, reaches for her purse and retrieves the CD Deacon had thrown at her before he'd left Soundcheck. You listen to this. You tell me that girl doesn't have it in her to be a great songwriter. She sighs as she puts the disc in the car's player.
She listens to the song all the way through and... of course it's good. Of course Deacon was right. Deacon is always right when it comes to music.
It hurts.
It hurts to admit that Juliette might not be just a flash in the pan. It hurts even more to think about Deacon helping her.
Rayna pushes the button for the disc to eject. She groans as she lets her head fall against the wheel and closes her eyes for a second.
And then.
And then she doesn't know how, but when she opens her eyes again, she's standing in some unfamiliar living room with a shirtless, tattooed guy standing in front of her.
What the hell?
"How do you get to gay from me wanting to take things slow?" the tattooed guy asks.
He's staring at her, expecting an answer. Again, what the hell? Could it be that she fell asleep with her head against the wheel? It doesn't feel like a dream, but it does feel different. She feels different. For one, she feels... shorter. And when she looks down at her body, she doesn't recognize it.
"Juliette?" the tattooed guy asks again.
Panic sets in. What kind of twisted dream is this? She closes her eyes, wishing to wake up, but nothing happens.
"I..." she starts, and she immediately recognizes Juliette's voice. This whole thing is getting weirder by the second. She wonders if she's having some sort of psychotic episode.
She isn't sure what to do, but what she knows is that she needs to get the stranger out of here. "Listen, I... I think we should talk about all this another time."
She spots a balled-up shirt on the floor which she assumes belongs to him. She grabs it, hands it to him before she pushes him toward the door.
"Jul—" he starts, but she closes the door on him before he can finish.
She turns around, leans back against the door and tries to remember how to breathe.
—
Juliette Barnes is having the biggest panic attack of her life.
One second she was standing in her living room arguing with Sean, and the next she finds herself sitting in some unfamiliar car, her forehead pressed against the wheel.
It's dark in the car, but when she looks in the rearview mirror, she could swear she sees Rayna looking back at her. She jumps out of the car, not daring to look again.
She's on the side of some road she's not sure she recognizes. She wraps her arms around herself, trying to remember how to breathe.
—
TBC